


Irreplaceable

by nahnahnahnah



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Introspection, It's a very minor divergence and actually doesn't change the canon events much, M/M, Really bad secret keeping, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-05 00:20:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 15,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18354725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nahnahnahnah/pseuds/nahnahnahnah
Summary: From the kink meme: So what if the film happened, and the reason Bunny didn't want Jack to be a Guardian was because it was putting his "mate" in danger with Pitch and "ohmygod Manny what the hell using a kid as a weapon against a millions-of-years-old mad shadow king?"  Basically I want the fic to narrate the entire film... but with Jack as Bunny's mate.Or: Aster has managed to completely neglect to tell anyone he got married a few decades back, and it comes back to bite him in the worst way.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I started filling a prompt on the rotg kinkmeme in 2013. I got about 2 parts in and totally ran out of steam, put it down and never came back.
> 
> Until now.
> 
> Please enjoy my ongoing love affair with italics, m-dashes, ellipses, and of course commas.
> 
> The original can be found here: https://rotg-kink.dreamwidth.org/1511.html?thread=1986791

Aster noticed the light flickering across the roof of the Warren as he coaxed a gaggle of googies to the color stream. He frowned, ears perking up to attention and nose twitching with annoyance. North hadn’t sent out a call of this sort for decades, and obviously wouldn’t do so now unless the situation was dire, but still. Three days before Easter, it bloody well better be important.

He dashed off a note in case Jackie came back early (he lived in hope) and went bounding off through the tunnels, headed to the North Pole and the fortress of the Guardian of Wonder.

And, all right, maybe he wasn’t in the best mood, with the freezing cold (for despite everything he still wasn’t what you’d call enthusiastic about having bits of himself frozen off), North’s admittance that he’d called Aster away from his Easter preparations on account of a shadow of all things, and North’s continued insistence that Christmas was better than Easter. The news that Pitch really was back was a blow, and frankly the thought of needing a fifth Guardian at all was a bit of an insult.

So all told, he wasn’t in the best frame of mind to be told that Jack Frost, his Jack, was meant to be a Guardian. Meant to be tied to the belief of children, when he didn’t yet have one believer of his own, one child who could see him. Meant to take up a fight against anything that caused a child harm, any of the hundreds of threats that plagued their charges. Meant, apparently, to be the deciding factor in the fight against a millennia-old mad shadow king. It wasn’t awe or confusion or indignation that struck him dumb for a moment; it was sheer terror at the thought of his Jackie, his _mate_ facing that sort of danger.

Of course, the other Guardians weren’t quite aware of the little fact that he and Jack were together. And if he told them now, all of his very reasonable objections would be dismissed as worry because he was too close to the situation. In the brief seconds as these thoughts flickered across his mind, he came to the conclusion that it would be best to object based on Jack’s unsuitability for the position. None of the others had ever really met Jack; if he could color their first impressions through his complaining, maybe they’d agree with him that they shouldn’t make Jack a Guardian.

“I take it back! The groundhog’s fine!” said Aster, noticing as he did the lovestruck gaze on Tooth’s face and the way her fairies were swooning. He pushed down a wave of irritation at the sight. She didn’t know, he reminded himself, and he couldn’t tell her now.

She did, apparently, at least notice he had seen her, because it was with embarrassment that she answered, “Well, ah, as long he helps to, ah...to protect the children, right?”

Aster frowned, and readied himself to speak badly of his mate. “Jack Frost!? He doesn’t care about children! All he does is freeze water pipes and mess with my egg hunts. Right? He’s an irresponsible, selfish—”

North interrupted, “Guardian.”

This complaining plan wasn’t going as well as Aster had hoped. “Jack Frost is many things.” Beautiful. Amazing. A bringer of joy and light to a tired old Pooka’s life. _Irreplaceable_. “But he is not a Guardian.”

North shrugged. “Manny disagrees. Is not our decision.” Sandy was nodding along, and Tooth had gone back to staring rapturously at the image of Jack, so Aster grit his teeth and nodded, relenting. For the moment. Jack wasn’t really irresponsible, per se, but he wouldn’t like the idea of how regimented they were as Guardians. He’d likely refuse to join anyway, and surely they’d listen then.

North beamed. “Excellent! Now all that is remaining is finding Jack! Bunny, you know him, yes? You know where he could be?”

“I’ve an idea,” Aster agreed, eying North.

“Good. You find him and yeti go with you, trap him in sack, and bring through portal to here! Is foolproof plan!”

Aster blanched. “Is that…really necessary?” he asked. “Look, mate, Frost is curious. Can’t help but stick his nose where it don’t belong. If I just tell him you want to see him in the workshop, he’d probably be interested enough to just come ‘round without any need for kidnapping.” Plus it’d give him a moment along with his mate, whom he hadn’t seen in days because of the necessity of Easter preparations, and whom he had to warn to keep their relationship under wraps in the presence of the other guardians.

That sounded…sordid, even in his own mind. Sounded like Jack was a dirty little secret, which was as far from the truth as could be. Aster’s natural tendency for privacy and the fact that he’d barely seen any of his colleagues in the decades since they’d started their relationship meant that he’d never really had the opportunity to break the news to them. He’d meant to, but Jack had never pushed to meet anyone and whenever he thought about it, he remembered how…loud North could be, and how invasive Tooth could get without thinking about it. Sandy probably would’ve been fine, but he wouldn’t keep it a secret or see why Aster wanted to. He could just picture the lot of them bursting in to the Warren, to disturb the sense of peace and home that Aster had finally managed to find and build with Jack.

He’d had some vague thoughts of getting the lot of them together and breaking it to them all at once, and hopefully heading off any overreactions before they could get started and scare Jackie off, but then things had gotten busy again and it’d gone out of his mind.

North subjected him to a steely gaze for a few moments before finally agreeing to his proposed plan. “Okay, okay, we will try your way, Bunny. But time is of essence here, so if you do not succeed, we do things my way.”

“Done,” Aster agreed, tapping his foot and creating passage, jumping through before North could offer one of his snowglobes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually have the entire thing written this time, and will be posting chapters as I finish editing and polishing them. It's going to be about 10-12 chapters, more or less this length, switching back and forth between Jack and Bunny's POV.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it!


	2. Chapter 2

Jack, meanwhile, had spent most of the day in Russia causing mischief before returning to Burgess. It was good to keep busy when he wasn’t with Aster; he’d been developing a possibly-concerning tendency to dwell on his loneliness before he’d met his mate. But even though it was a relatively sleepy town, he always ended up back in Burgess. Aside from the Warren, it was his favorite place in the world.

Some of his favorite people other than Aster lived there.

Almost immediately upon landing in the town, he ran into Jamie. He seemed to be reading a book on mythological creatures, which made Jack smile. That was like him. He believed in pretty much anything and everything. With one glaring exception.

“Huh, that looks interesting. Good book?” he asked. There was, as ever, no response. He didn’t expect one, just hoped for it. Hope was important. If he’d learned nothing else from Aster, he’d learned that.

As Jamie’s friends caught up to him and announced the snow day, Jack couldn’t help the happiness and contentment that welled up in him at their joy. Unfortunately, he also couldn’t help the thread of bitterness that made him call out an unheard “You’re welcome!” as they ran off.

He played this game sometimes, talking to the kids as if they could answer back. As if they could hear him, or see him. Aster hated the habit, said it worried him, so Jack had tried to cut down on doing it.

But Jack was not entirely pleased with his mate at the moment. He realized that Easter meant a lot to the pooka, but Aster tended to ignore him completely when the holiday came around.

That would’ve stung enough if he had friends he could fall back on and commiserate with, but Aster was literally everything he had. Spirits tended to be few and far between, and tended to stay away from the populated areas Jack preferred to frequent.

Jack had been drifting along, propelled by the wind, during his maudlin musing. He found himself near Jamie’s house, and spotted Jamie and his friends coming up the sidewalk. Tearing himself out of his thoughts, he perched atop the fence as he watched Jamie slip through a hole in his fence, going after his sled. He smiled to hear their chatter, Jamie ardently defending his belief in just about everything. He grinned a bit when they mentioned his mate.

“Whoa, the Easter Bunny is real!” Jamie protested, in response to his friends’ teasing.

Jack grinned and ducked his head. “Real enough,” he said, with a laugh in his voice, this thought meant for himself, not for the parody of conversation he indulged himself with. He jumped down from the fence, leaning on his staff and watching the boys play. Little Sophie was out as well, and when she fell over her cries brought Jamie’s mom from the house.

Jack far preferred the joy and fun of children to the seriousness of adults, but parents who loved and cared for their kids did have a special place in his heart. Jamie’s mom in particular. There was just something about her voice…Though at the moment he wasn’t particularly thrilled about what she was saying.

“Jamie, hat? We don’t want Jack Frost nipping at your nose,” she scolded.

“Who’s Jack Frost?” asked Jamie. Jack felt his heart lurch. Jamie had so much belief, hearing the boy actually say his name raised his hopes, only to come crashing down with Jamie’s mother’s next words.

“No one, honey, it’s just an expression.”

“Hey,” Jack complained, following the boys out of the yard. “Who’s Jack Frost?” He’d show them. He made a snowball, and breathed a little magic on it, throwing it at Jamie and hitting the boy on the back of the head.

Jamie looked up and turned around, annoyed for a moment before Jack’s magic took hold. “Okay, who threw that?” he asked, laughing.

Jack smirked. “Wasn’t bigfoot, kiddo,” he said. It was always nice to interact with the world. Even if the kids couldn’t see him, he could still have fun with them.

Jamie, not able to see the real culprit, retaliated against the kids behind him that he thought had thrown the snowball, and soon there was a free-for-all. Jack laughed, frolicking with them as he created more snowballs, making sure the kids always had enough ammo. Jack had to step in once when Jamie accidentally hit Cupcake. She was a good kid, but a bit sensitive about her size and tended to be suspicious of other kids’ interactions with her. A little bit of Jack’s magic and she lightened up, joining the rest in their horseplay.

And, okay, Jack may have gotten a little carried away with the sled ride. Through traffic. But he had been with Jamie the entire time, keeping him from coming to any real harm, and honestly wasn’t that the point of sledding, to feel the thrill of a risk? Why would Jamie even bother to bring out his sled if he didn’t want to use it?

But Jack got his comeuppance when Jamie’s tooth was knocked out, and the kids’ exuberance turned to looking forward to the Tooth Fairy instead of having fun in the snow. And that just figured, didn’t it? Jack worked so hard to make the kids laugh, to give them joy and fun, had worked for years, and still nothing. Still the Guardians and other spirits could outdo him in a second.

The downward turn of his mood called clouds to thicken and cover the sun, the snow to come down harder, the chill in the air to turn bitter. The kids dispersed and ran for home, as Jack tried in vain to make them stay.

“What’s a guy gotta do to get a little attention around here!” Jack pleaded as Jamie ran through him, and Jack shuddered a bit. That was still the worst feeling in the world, no matter how many times he felt it. He watched the kids go sadly, and flew away. He felt like being by himself for a while.

~*~

Jack went back to his pond, determined to sulk for a bit. He wanted to return to the Warren and see Aster, but after the day he’d had getting the brush-off in favor of Easter preparations would have been unbearable, so it was best to avoid the situation. But Jack wasn’t great at sitting around feeling sorry for himself, so before too long he found himself drifting toward Jamie’s house again.

He found Jamie, Sophie, and their mom in Jamie’s room, preparing for bed. He watched them interact with a lump in his throat, and perched up on the roof when he could take no more. He turned his eyes up to the moon, the moon that had given him a name once and then nothing more, nothing more for centuries.

“If there’s something I’m doing wrong, can you, can you just tell me what it is?” he pleaded. “Because I've tried everything, and no one ever sees me. You put me here,” he continued, voice beginning to crack, “the least you can do is tell me, tell me why.”

The was no response. There had never been any response, no matter how often he begged, threatened, cajoled, or entreated. Still, he had to keep trying, had to see if maybe the next time would finally give him an answer. Aster’s hope must be rubbing off on him.

Jack turned away, distracting himself by playing around on some telephone wires, when he saw the first tendril of Dreamsand. He smiled, reached out to the golden shimmer, and laughed as a dolphin danced around him for a moment before continuing on to the child it was meant for. He smiled and walked along the wire for a bit, watching the Dreamsand make its way to the children.

As he took in the peaceful scene, there was a thump behind him and a shadow flashed by the corner of his eye. He followed it into an alley, taking up a fighting stance and cautiously calling out “Who’s there?”

“Hello, mate,” answered a familiar voice.

A grin lit up Jack’s face, and he dropped his staff as he ran toward the dark figure. “Aster!” he cried.

The pooka stepped into the light and swept Jack into his arms, tilting his head to kiss him. “Snowdrop,” he murmured into Jack’s hair, sounding unaccountably relieved.

Jack pulled back a bit, enough to see the worry in Aster’s face. “Something wrong?” he asked.

Aster sighed. “Yeah, actually, there is, but it’s complicated, and North’ll be right pissed off if I give it away.”

“North?” Jack asked. “As in, Nicholas St. North? Santa Claus?”

“Got it in one, Snowdrop,” said Aster, the faint annoyance at the mention of his rival shining through the haggard worried look on his face. “I’ve been sent to bring you round to his.”

Jack’s eyes widened. “I’m supposed to go to Santa’s workshop? Do you know how many times I’ve tried to sneak in?”

Aster scowled. “Dunno why you’d want to see the bloody place. Not that amazing.”

Jack grinned, and pressed closer to nuzzle his head under Aster’s chin. “Don’t worry. You’re still my favorite,” he said softly. He felt Aster take a deep breath and brace himself slightly.

“Right,” said Aster, “about that.” Jack’s stomach dropped a bit. “Listen, the other guardians don’t know about…about us. I’d prefer to keep it that way for a bit.”

Jack pulled away from Aster, wrapping his arms around himself. “Yeah. Sure. I get it.”

Jack had yet to meet any of the other guardians. Aster had never introduced him, never even brought up the idea, and Jack had never mustered up the courage to ask why not. He knew Aster didn’t spend a lot of time with them—actually, he had never mentioned meeting up with them since their relationship had gotten serious, and Jack hadn’t known about any time he’d met with any of them at all since they’d been mated.

But he knew enough from Aster’s stories that they were pretty much the closest thing Aster had left to family. So the fact that he’d never wanted to introduce Jack to them, that he was now asking Jack to outright lie about their relationship…

“Jackie, please,” Aster said, reaching out and pulling him into his arms again. “It’s not like that. It’s only that I haven’t gotten the chance to tell them in the past century or so, and the timing isn’t right for it now. This situation…Look, I’m not happy with it, all right? It’s nothing to do with how I feel about you. Please, just…for me?”

Jack looked at him for a long moment before closing his eyes and bowing his head. “Fine. For you.”

“Thanks, Snowdrop,” said Aster. “And I’m sorry. But now,” he went on as he tapped on the ground and opened a hole next to them, “Shall we?”

A shadow of a smile crossed Jack’s face, and he pulled away from Aster, taking his hand as they jumped through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took quite a few lines directly from the script here; I promise I'm not going to be doing this the whole story, but I wanted to give a familiar backdrop on which to display Jack's musings about his life and his relationship to Bunny. As the story goes on, I will sometimes be incorporating dialogue from the movies, but mostly when I want to make a point and contrast it to what's changed. Other times will be more summary-like, but the aim is for you to be able to follow it even if you haven't watched the movie recently.
> 
> This is the end of what I wrote previously and just had to edit; the rest of the story is all new writing. Hopefully it flows well and you don't even notice the difference.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

Aster set them out a quick hop from North’s door, and watched with mingled affection, exasperation, and envy as Jack stared up at the workshop.

“Looked your fill yet? I’m freezing my tail off out here.”

Jack grinned and Aster’s heart flipped. “Aww, don’t be jealous, Ast—Bunny. The Warren’s still the coolest place I’ve ever seen. You know. Metaphorically.”

Aster rolled his eyes and nudged Jack’s side with his elbow as pushed the great doors open. He had to hide the way his stomach sank when Jack’s eyes dimmed as he self-corrected on using Aster’s name.

Once inside, Aster led the way up to the Globe Room. He’d kept his mouth shut on the Guardian issue this far, more out of concern for getting back to the Pole before North sent any yeti out to look for them, might as well let North be the one to tell Jack. Plus Jack wouldn’t _want_ to be a Guardian, surely, and his reaction would only help Aster’s cause.

So long as he _didn’t_ want to be a Guardian.

They made it up to the Globe Room before Aster could get too wrapped up in that thought. North was waiting for them.

“Jack Frost!” he exclaimed, coming forward with intent.

Jack was staring. He’d grasped his crook in front of himself a bit defensively. Yeah, North had that effect. Aster forced himself to move off to the side a bit no matter how much Jack’s body language was making him want to stick close. His fellow Guardians might get a touch over-friendly but they wouldn’t hurt Jack.

“You know Bunny, obviously,” North was saying, hopefully for once in his life reading the bloody room as he pulled up short of actually embracing Jack.

“Obviously,” Jack agreed, dry as the Sahara. Aster met his gaze for a second and had to smirk a little at the sly spark in his mate’s eyes.

“And the Tooth Fairy?” North continued on, and now Aster had to cross his arms and look away as Tooth just flew right up into Jack’s personal space as she demanded to see his teeth. He felt himself bristle a bit as she actually put her hands in his mouth, but it only lasted a moment as Jack’s clear discomfort finally seemed to penetrate her tooth-induced obsessive haze.

“And Sandman,” North finished, nudging Sandy awake.

And then Jack was demanding to know why he had been summoned, all spiky sarcasm and bravado masking defensiveness. Aster ached to take him into his arms. Hiding their relationship was going to be harder than he’d thought.

But then North finally had his big revelation and suddenly the whole room was filled with elves and yetis making a ruckus. North and Sandy were getting into it, and Tooth still seemed a bit starstruck by Jack’s teeth, so Aster may have been the only one to see the growing annoyance with a hint of panic in Jack’s face, and so was probably the only one entirely unsurprised when Jack interrupted the whole shebang with a blast of frost and wind.

But then if he’d known North had all this planned he could’ve told him how it would’ve ended up.

“What makes you think I want to be a Guardian?” Jack demanded. Aster allowed himself a second of relief—if this was something Jack had really wanted, he didn’t have it in him to stand in the way, no matter how bad an idea it was.

North was ignoring Jack’s protests just as much as he’d ignored Aster’s earlier, and Aster could feel his annoyance mounting.

And then Tooth was getting involved, trying to convince Jack of the nobility of their cause as she got into his personal space again. And as her fingers got into his mouth again.

“Okay, no more wishy-washy!” North said after a bit more back and forth. “Pitch is out there doing who knows what!”

“You mean the boogeyman,” said Jack, carefully neutral. Aster had told Jack very little about Pitch Black, and he wondered now if he ought to have said more. If he ought to have tried harder to impress upon his mate exactly what sort of threat Pitch could be. But he’d been so sure that bastard had been taken care of.

“When Pitch threatens us,” North said, gesturing at the globe, “he threatens them as well.”

“All the more reason to pick someone more qualified!” Jack retorted, and Aster felt his stomach twist a bit. It was sounding almost like Jack didn’t think he was good enough for the job with that one, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

“Pick? You think we pick?” North was saying. “No, you were chosen like we all were chosen. By Man in Moon.”

“What?” It sounded like the breath had been punched out of him. Aster couldn’t help the wince, but he didn’t think anyone noticed. Everyone was focused on Jack.

“Last night, Jack. He chose you,” Tooth said.

“Maybe,” Aster added. It was sounding far too much like a done deal the way the others were carrying on. Jack was stuck on Manny, though.

“The Man in the Moon, he talks to you?” Jack asked. Aster pulled his crossed arms in tighter; he knew why he didn’t want to reveal their relationship right at the moment but it was looking more and more like a bloody stupid idea that was keeping him away from his mate when he was in pain.

North was prattling on about destiny, like the Man in the Moon had total control over their lives.

“Why wouldn’t he tell me himself?” Jack said, sounding more like he was talking to himself than anything. “After three hundred years, this is his answer? And to not even—” he cut himself off and shook his head. “No. No, it’s not for me.”

Aster breathed out a sigh of relief. A very subtle sigh of relief.

“Jack, please,” Tooth said, apparently ready to keep trying.

“He’d said his piece,” Aster interrupted. “And really, it’s for the best.”

“Come now, Bunny, Manny has made it clear Jack is to be Guardian,” North said, and Sandy was giving him that look, but Aster was a bit more concerned with the way Jack’s face had just fallen.

“You don’t want me to do it.” His voice was very flat.

“I just mean…look, we’re tied to belief, right?” Aster tried to explain himself, but Jack immediately swung round to scowl at him, and he hurried on, “Our strength—our existence—is all dependent on the kiddies’ belief in us. And Jack, well…”

“Bunny, that’s enough!” Tooth shouted, but that wasn’t what stopped Aster. Jack had tears in his eyes. He didn’t let them fall, but Aster could see the sheen of them in his glare.

He sank back as North pushed forward and swept Jack off.

“That was cruel,” Tooth snapped as soon as Jack was out of earshot.

“It was only the truth,” Aster said, crossing his arms again. He was being confrontational, not defensive, damnit. “You know what happens to _us_ if we lose believers. No telling what could happen to _him_ if he took the oath without any.”

He didn’t want to talk about this. He’d been trying not to think about it, but apparently it hadn’t crossed anyone else’s mind, so now he _had_ to. The image of Jack weakening, Jack dying was playing itself out in his mind, and Aster felt sick with horror and helplessness.

Tooth had no real rejoinder for him, but she was still bristling. Sandy stepped up instead, displaying the image of a crescent moon.

“Y’think Manny wouldn’t’ve chosen him if it’d just kill him,” Aster said flatly. Tooth perked up as Sandy nodded enthusiastically, but Aster wasn’t totally mollified. There was too much history there for him to completely distrust Manny, especially when it came to Guardian business, but he was all too familiar with his mate’s pain and confusion; Jack was absolutely sure Manny had been the one to resurrect him, and while Aster knew full well the difficulties Manny had with communication, surely he could have let the Guardians know somehow that Jack was alone, and confused, and scared.

“Anyway, Bunny, you really ought to apologize to Jack,” Tooth said as Sandy nodded along, and Aster snorted and rolled his eyes even as his stomach twisted with guilt. A good bit of that was for the way Jack had looked at him there at the end, but there was more than a little for lying to the other Guardians about his relationship.

Before he could come up with a response, Tooth went ridged, and her little fairies started buzzing about like mad.

“Tooth?”

“Something’s happened,” she said. Her voice was tense, her deliver staccato. “No, something’s _happening_. At the Tooth Palace.”

Aster traded a grim glance with Sandy. “You go. We’ll get North and Jack and be right behind you.” This was not the time to continue the argument. Maybe if they spent time together the other Guardians would come round to his point of view.

“Right,” Tooth agreed, and was out the window before they could blink.

Aster took off on all fours to track down North and Jack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it!


	4. Chapter 4

Jack hurried after North, still frowning slightly in the aftermath of their conversations about centers. There were more important things to worry about, clearly, but it had stuck with him, what the big man had said, and for all that his isolation led him to be relatively introspective he wasn’t sure what to make of it.

And if he kept thinking about that conversation he could ignore Aster bounding along right behind North.

But apparently his mate couldn’t make it that easy for him; he was pulling back and waving the Sandman on when the little guy paused, and then he fell in step with Jack and glanced around quickly.

“Jackie,” he said in a low voice. No. That was entirely unfair, he was using that tone so the sound wouldn’t carry, and this was not the place and definitely not the time, but no matter what he told himself he couldn’t stop the curl of heat in his belly at the pitch of Aster’s voice.

“Jackie, I’m _sorry_ ,” Aster tried again when Jack didn’t respond. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you. We die, without believers.”

Okay, that got his attention. Jack’s step faltered for a moment, and he looked at Aster. Those green eyes he loved so well were peering back at him with concern.

“Really?” Jack managed. His heart was in his throat as he reminded himself how entrenched the idea of the Easter Bunny was in the imaginations of children. He wasn’t worried for himself; he had no intention of taking that oath, no matter what North or anyone else said. But the thought of losing Aster…

That was dumb. Aster, in some weird way Jack didn’t really get, _was_ life. He couldn’t just die, even if all the children in the world suddenly stopped believing in him tomorrow. _Surely_ not. But even though he’d known Easter was important to his mate, he’d never realized quite how much.

“Swear it,” Aster was saying. He glanced up the hall at North and Sandy, then added in a low tone, “I can’t lose you, Snowdrop. I _can’t_.”

They were running out of time; North was swiftly approaching an impressively large pair of double doors and Jack just wanted to hold his mate, to have Aster hold him after that realization, but he couldn’t. They couldn’t. Because for whatever reason, Aster hadn’t told his friends they were together, and so now they had to keep their distance…

Jack pushed down the bitterness and the grief. He gave Aster half a smile and reached out to squeeze his hand, once, briefly.

“It’s okay,” he said. “We’ve got bigger things to worry about now.”

~*~

Ten minutes later Jack was getting a pretty good idea of why Aster never, ever took him up on the offer to take him flying. There was a part of him that was still annoyed with his mate that had been a little glad to see his discomfort—that’s what you _get_ —especially when he was actually perfectly safe, but. Well. It wasn’t actually _fun_ seeing the love of his life scared out of his mind. It was enough to make him take a seat instead of hanging half out of the sleight to check out the view, especially when Aster had grabbed the back of his hoodie apparently without a care of who saw or that Jack was doubly in no danger because he could, you know, _fly_.

It wasn’t exactly a relief to get to Tooth Palace and see the Nightmares attacking, but at least Aster was distracted from his terror. And getting to drive the sleigh for a few moments was a thrill, even in the circumstances. He’d known—Aster had told him—that North wasn’t quite what the modern depictions would have him as; there’d been annoyed mutterings about Cossack bastards and bloody bandit lords from time to time, but seeing the guy swing his sabers was something else.

He could’ve done without ever meeting Pitch Black. Creepy asshole. And maybe the traveling through shadows and coming up behind you unexpectedly bit was his _thing_ , but did he really have to come out breathing down Jack’s neck? It was unnerving, more than scary.

Though he was a little touched by Aster jumping to his defense as soon as the asshole insulted Jack. And a tiny bit annoyed at Aster trying to fight his battles for him, but he’d come to terms with his mate’s overprotectiveness ages ago. Mostly.

After Pitch escaped he kind of wanted to just wrap himself around Aster and sit for a while. It had shaken him, the way Tooth Palace had started to crumble. And Pitch’s plans…well. Even if he _still_ wasn’t planning on joining the Guardians, he couldn’t just leave well enough alone now.

Not when Aster was being threatened.

Judging by the way Aster was looking at him, he wasn’t alone in wanting to just curl up together in the Warren. But his mate merely drifted over to him and didn’t reach out. Jack was only a little bitter, and actually his amusement over Aster’s faux-casual demeanor was drowning that out a bit.

Aster was far too tense across the shoulders and was making way too big a show out of only looking at Jack from the corner of his eye. It was ridiculous and kind of hilarious. In addition to frustrating.

“All right, Jackie?” he asked in a rough, low voice.

“I’m fine, Bunny. He didn’t even touch me.”

“Maybe not. But he was right out of order, what he said.” Aster eyed Jack a little more closely. He raised his hand, hesitated a moment, and squeezed Jack’s shoulder.

Jack subtly glanced around; the other Guardians weren’t paying attention. He put his hand over Aster’s and squeezed, turning the purposefully casual action a little more intimate. “I try not to take villains _that_ melodramatic too seriously,” he said. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Aster said, but backed off a step. North was coming over, and Jack offered his mate half a smile as he left him to it. Tooth was kind of crumpled on the ground by a pool, and he made his way over to see if there was anything he could do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's where I start glossing over some scenes that basically go as they do in canon; North and Jack have their heart-to-heart and the confrontation with Pitch happens more or less as scripted. Hopefully that was clear from the story but I was going to be worried over whether I conveyed that well enough if I didn't add this note.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

No matter _what_ Jack said later, Aster had _not_ been unbearably obvious about flirting as they raced about the world collecting teeth.

He had been very subtle about the flirting. Maybe a little less subtle about showing off, but North had been just as fired up, and surely Jack wouldn’t accuse North of flirting with either of them.

And anyway, Jack had started it. Issuing a challenge at the start while smirking like that, a wicked light in his eyes. The sound of his delighted laugh when Aster took off running to prove how pointless any contest in speed would be. The way his wind ruffled through Aster's fur.

But that wasn't really flirting. It was friendly competition, maybe, but Aster was competitive and the other Guardians knew it. They wouldn't have looked twice at that.

As for the rest…well, yeah, he’d maybe taken advantage of their relative privacy for a moment or two here and there, when he knew the other Guardians were elsewhere and it was just him and Jackie on a roof, but who could blame him?

Like in Shanghai, when Aster had popped up out of a hole after Jack had iced him when he got to a tooth before Jack did to give him a good scare in return. He had meant to grab his shoulders from behind, but when Jack turned so quickly and they were chest-to-chest, closer than they’d been nearly all day, he wound up embracing him close, a whisker’s breadth from kissing him before North’s not-so-far-off bellow interrupted them.

Or in Moscow, when Jack had thrown that challenging little smirk over his shoulder when he’d been the one to get to a tooth first, and stood poised to leave through the window just as Aster popped into the room. Aster’d chased him down for that one, had pinned him to a wall and was leaning closer as Jackie laughed—that laugh drove him mad in the _best_ way—but then Tooth had buzzed past directly overhead, too focused on the teeth to spare a glance down at them.

Or in Paris, when the bloody larrikin had _seduced_ a tooth right out of his hand, leaning close but not quite touching him with that smile, looking up at him through his eyelashes with his head ducked. He hadn’t even noticed Jack’s pale hand sneaking down to take the tooth out of his loosening grasp until he was flying away on the wind.

Sandy had at least gotten the tooth off Jack, but he’d come up so quickly, and the way he’d looked from Jack back to Aster made the fur on the back of his neck stand up. It was far too knowing; how close had he been? What had he seen?

And then Sandy had been glancing over at them constantly when they were forced to wait together to get change to give the kiddies—the fact they’d forgotten, that was an embarrassment and make no mistake. They might not be tooth fairies, but that was just bloody amateur—and North wasn’t stupid no matter how oblivious he acted. He must have noticed Sandy’s curiosity, but he gave no hint of what he thought about it, which was unnerving in and of itself.

It had been a lapse. Aster had figured already that he ought to have told the other Guardians—his _friends_ —about Jack well before, but he hadn’t. He swore to himself that he would, just as soon as this nonsense about Jack being a Guardian was sorted. Jack clearly got along with the lot of them, and he was kicking himself for not introducing him to them before now. Maybe if Jack had friends he wouldn’t torture himself by hanging around with humans.

That was obvious, in retrospect. He was too used to being alone, to the isolation. He forgot sometimes that Jack felt it more keenly than he did.

Still, this really wasn’t the moment for revelations. It would be better to have a heart-to-heart after this Pitch business was done. Aster was going to blame his sloppiness on the adrenaline of the race. And. Well. He _missed_ Jack.

For nearly a week since he’d seen neither hide nor hair of his mate. Jack always cleared out a bit before Easter. Aster hated it. He got it, really he did, he knew he could be a bit of a dag as the preparations ramped up as his holiday got closer, and that Jack was a help the rest of the time but could probably do with a break to avoid a domestic, but he hated Jack just leaving. He knew his Snowdrop would be out among the humans, breaking his own heart by interacting with them and talking to them when they’d never answer back. And no matter how well he understood that Jack didn’t exactly need to be out of the weather, and didn’t sleep nightly so would be fine going walkabout in all conditions, he nevertheless didn’t like feeling as though he was kicking his mate out of their home.

He worried, sometimes, that Jack didn’t necessarily think of it as _theirs_. For all they were mates, Jack still seemed to question his place. Aster wasn’t quite sure what he could do to fix that.

He put his darkening thoughts aside as he popped up in another child’s room to find the rest of the Guardians and Jack already there. He grumbled about conspiracies partly to keep up appearances and partly to keep himself from looking over too much at Jack; no telling now what the rest of them had noticed, and no reason to give them any more clues. But even as he put up a smokescreen the human boy’s face sparked something in his mind. The kid looked familiar.

It wasn’t until he actually woke up that Aster twigged to it. Jamie Bennet. One of Jackie’s favorites, and one whose disbelief Aster was fairly sure hurt Jack more than most.

But then the dog happened, so Aster couldn’t dwell on the uncomfortable feeling of almost _resenting_ a _child_ for something he had no control over, and of course then he couldn’t dwell on much at all as Sandy’s dreamsand hit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the delay! I had totally forgotten that this is pretty much the chapter I said I'd come back to on rewrites, so it needed a little more editing than normal.
> 
> I really, really hope you like it! I'm not as fond of this one, but I quite like some of the bits coming up, so eventually I had to bite the bullet and post.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

So in retrospect, it hadn’t been the best idea to leave most of the Guardians—including Aster—sleeping and go off after Nightmares with only Sandy for company. But Jack knew that Sandy had been getting suspicious about his relationship with Aster, and he’d seen the snowflakes form out of the dreamsand above Aster’s head. He’d wanted to get Sandy out of there, and then the Nightmare had appeared.

Plus he could admit he’d been bonding a little with Tooth and Baby Tooth over the course of the night, and now wanted a little payback on Pitch for that attach on Tooth Palace.

And it wasn’t until after the rest of the Guardians joined the fight that…that…

Jack sat at one of the windows back at North’s workshop. They were having a memorial service of sorts for Sandy, but Jack hadn’t known him that well, not really. The memorial was for the people who’d loved him, that he’d loved, and Jack wasn’t part of that.

He made an image of Sandy in frost on the window and wondered why it felt like he’d lost so much _more_ than an acquaintance of a few days.

He was vaguely aware of hushed voices behind him coming closer and then Aster was there. He didn’t say anything at first, only wrapped his arms around Jack and buried his nose in Jack’s hair.

“They’ll see,” Jack murmured even as he leaned back into the embrace and grabbed onto Aster’s arms, holding them in place. Or maybe just holding on.

“Sent ‘em off. And I don’t care,” Aster said.

Jack turned then, coming up off the window seat as he returned the embrace. They held each other for a long moment.

“I’m sorry,” Jack said, half-muffled by Aster’s fur.

“For what?”

“I wish I could’ve done something.”

Aster pulled back at that, and tilted Jack’s chin up to meet his eyes. “What’re you talking about, Jackie? You sent Pitch running and saved all our hides. You did _more_ than enough.”

“If I’d been faster—”

“There’s no way of knowing and you’ll just worry yourself sick with the guessing. You said yourself you didn’t know you could do what you did. I didn’t either, and I know you better than anyone.” Aster’s hand moved from nudging Jack’s chin up to cupping his cheek. “I’m proud of you, Jackie. And Sandy would be, too.”

Jack could feel the corner of his mouth pulling up in a smile. He nuzzled into Aster’s palm a bit, pulling a pleased rumble from his mate’s chest.

“What do we do now, Aster?”

“Well,” Aster’s eyes lit up a little, “I’ve had an idea about that. How do you think this lot’ll feel about helping me out the way we helped out Tooth?”

~*~

As it turned out, everyone was gung-ho about helping with Easter. Or maybe Aster was just surprisingly good at rousing speeches. If Jack really thought about it, he could see how the Guardian of Hope would be, but it was odd to think of Aster in that light.

It was also weird having other people in the Warren. Jack was fairly certain he’d been the only other person Aster had really ever let in. Except apparently North’s snowglobes could make a portal in whenever he liked, but as far as Jack knew he’d never really visited. The big man certainly seemed surprised by his surroundings.

Of course, even Jack hadn’t really seen the Warren in full Easter-is-immanent mode. It was impressive. He knew, intellectually, how much work Aster put into Easter and how many eggs he prepared, but actually seeing it was something else. He’d never quite dared to stay before; aside from how short-tempered Aster could get from the stress, Easter was special to him. Jack knew that, and he had a better idea of exactly how important it was after seeing Tooth Palace start to crumble, but he still hated being confronted with how much space it took up in Aster’s life.

Especially considering he wasn’t always sure how much space he took up.

But it was hard to hold on to melancholy in the face of Aster’s almost manic excitement, and the beauty and wonder of seeing the Warren at work. And especially in the face of Sophie.

Jack had heard people describe being good with children as an attractive quality before, but this was the first time he really got that. It brought up questions he was afraid to ask when he watched Aster interacting with the little girl, questions about his life a long, long time ago, but for the most part he just kind of wanted to grin and never stop when he saw them together.

At last the eggs were done, and Sophie was conking out. Aster was looking over the whole gaggle of them while Sophie drifted off in his arms. Jack settled in next to him, content to bask in his mate’s quiet pride and contentment.

“Thanks for earlier,” Aster said as Jack crouched close.

“Hmm?”

“The snowflake. Wouldn’t’ve known what to do with the little ankle biter without the nudge.”

“Anytime,” Jack replied with a soft smile as he slanted a sideways look over at Aster and Sophie.

Aster was looking back. “You’re good with them. The kids, I mean.”

Jack felt his shoulders stiffen as he looked away, but he couldn’t manage to relax. “Yeah, right.”

“Snowdrop…” Aster’s voice trailed off when Jack didn’t look over. “You’d be good at it. Being a Guardian. If it wasn’t for—”

“Yeah,” Jack managed to force the word out. Better to interrupt than let Aster finish. And probably more merciful, given the hesitance in his tone.

He felt Aster’s tentative touch on his shoulder, and he finally brought himself to look back over. “M’sorry,” Aster said as he leaned over, just to let his forehead rest against Jack’s for a moment.

He’d shifted Sophie to a one-armed hold, and she’d snuggled closer to him. Aster pulled away as the sound of voices drew nearer. North and Tooth were coming up behind them, so their conversation ended there before Jack could say anything too sappy. And hopefully their audience would pass off the softness in his expression as being directed at Sophie, not Aster.

This whole hiding-their-relationship thing was actually starting to be a little fun when he didn’t think about it too hard. He still didn’t really get why they were doing it, but it was nice having a secret when there were other options, when it wasn’t just because no one really knew you or cared to know. It was…intimate, maybe.

At least when he wasn’t thinking about Aster not wanting his friends to know about them. He _must_ have his reasons, but still, Jack kept wondering why.

But there were other things to worry about. Sophie had to get home before her mom realized she was gone. Tooth offered to take her, but Jack kind of insisted. Aster capitulated immediately, of course. Jack had told him once that the only time he didn’t pass straight through the kids was when they were asleep; Aster would know how much it meant to him to be able to hold her and carry her home safe. The others fell in line, and Jack was off.

Out of all his mistakes, he’d end up regretting that decision the most.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually really enjoyed writing this section especially. And my favorite thing about switching POVs this way is posing a question/insecurity in one chapter and then getting the other side of it in the next chapter, so you can probably tell I had some fun with that.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter!


	7. Chapter 7

That morning was the worst Aster had lived through in…quite some time.

The Nightmares didn’t come immediately after Jack left. No, they held off a bit, only came when Aster was starting to get worried about why Jack wasn’t back yet.

They held off just long enough for that sinking dread to really latch in when they came, that somehow Pitch had done away with Jack.

And then…there were too many of them.

They focused on the eggs.

Aster tried so, so hard to keep his hope alive. Surely some of the eggs were salvageable? Surely the slightly broken ones would be good enough, this once?

But they weren’t.

And as he felt his last bit of hope die as a child walked through him—the first time, only once, by all that was good how did his mate stand this happening over and _over_ —he saw Jack.

For a moment, the relief at seeing Jack alive and unharmed overwhelmed him entirely, left no room for any other feelings.

But—he _was_ unharmed. _Entirely_ unharmed.

And he hadn’t come. He hadn’t _been there_.

He expected anger. He expected absolute rage at the thought of Jack abandoning him, but it didn’t happen.

He knew Jack better than that; he _knew_ his mate wouldn’t just leave, wouldn’t just not come when he knew Aster needed him. He must’ve met Pitch himself, who had been suspiciously absent from the attack on the eggs.

He must’ve been strong enough to get away on his own, when Aster hadn’t even been strong enough to save a few eggs.

No, it wasn’t anger. What came was shame. He couldn’t stand the thought of Jack seeing him like this, of his horror and his panic and his _pity_.

And then the fear.

That hit him in the gut, the knowledge that Pitch had won, that he had ruined Easter and now Aster was afraid for his life, but more than that, was afraid of the pain Jack would feel when he realized the belief that kept Aster alive was gone.

So he held back. He didn’t even look at Jack directly. He watched out of the corner of his eye as North and Tooth approached Jack, but he didn’t listen in on the conversation.

He couldn’t stand to hear what Jack would say when he heard what had happened.

Instead he crouched down, and lay his ears back, and put his hands over them to block out the noise. He concentrated on the sound of his own breathing, his own heartbeat.

Jack caught his attention. Of course it was Jack.

“Bunny— _Aster_ , please!”

He flinched. He couldn’t help it. But he looked over.

Jack looked scared. North and Tooth were both facing him, almost boxing him in, but Aster could see him and his eyes were wide and horrified. He was clutching a tooth box in one hand and his staff in the other, and his grip was white-knuckled but his arms were pulled in, as if he were protecting himself.

He looked scared.

Aster closed his eyes tight and turned away. There was nothing he could offer. He wasn’t enough anymore.

“Aster,” Jack said again, and his voice was small.

“Easter is new beginnings, new life,” Aster said, still refusing to look at him. “Easter is about _hope_. And now it’s _gone_ , Snowdrop. I can’t…that’s _it_. It’s _done_.”

He looked blindly over the remains of what should have been an Easter egg hunt, willing Jack to read into his words, to realize how deeply and how thoroughly he’d been hurt. He couldn’t say it outright. He didn’t know how to tell his mate that this was it, that there was no way he could survive this.

That he was leaving Jack, no matter how little he wanted to.

Aster wanted to grab Jack and pull him close and soothe the pain he could hear in his voice and he wanted Jack to smile at him the way he did and stroke his ears and make this _better_ …

He wanted this not to have happened.

But Jack just stood there, staring at him.

It _had_ happened.

“You should go,” was what he said. If this was it, if this was the end, it would be better for Jack to be far away before the loss of belief started affecting him.

He flinched when he heard the broken-off sob out of Jack’s throat, but by the time he turned back Jack was already flying away on the wind. He didn’t have the energy to go after him.

(Later, they would talk. Jack would explain, more to the others, why he hadn’t been there. Aster would explain that it had been shame and fear that kept him from reaching out, and not rejection. _Never_ rejection.

And after Jack gave brief rundown on what had happened with the rest of the Guardians, they offered one another comfort curled together in their nest later.

“I’m sorry,” Jack would say as he buried his face in the fur on Aster’s chest. “I’m so _sorry_ , Aster, I was so stupid. I should never have fallen for it, but that voice—Emma’s voice—”

Aster would pull him closer, never close enough, and nuzzle his face desperately and whisper back that it was all right, Pitch was clever with decades, centuries, eons of experience and how was Jack supposed to have defenses against the sister he’d loved and protected and _died_ to keep safe?

And he would feel lower than dirt for not realizing Jack assumed he was being rejected, but Jackie would look at him with those blue, blue eyes and insist he’d done nothing wrong, that Jack bore the blame.

In the end they would decide that the blame belonged to Pitch, of course, but Aster would think of Jack not defending himself, of Jack left alone after Aster all but abandoned him, and he would swear to himself he would do better. He would be better. He would be a mate that actually came close to what Jack deserved.

But that was later.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...how'd I do?
> 
> That last scene is a flash-forward to after the end of the movie. Don't worry, next chapter is Jack POV and I'm picking it up at the confrontation with Pitch in Antarctica. I wanted to show a little bit of exactly how Jack is taking this, as his interpretation of this scene is very, very different from Aster's.
> 
> Also Aster has no idea North and Tooth were just sort of accusing Jack of putting his memories ahead of Easter and the Guardians.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	8. Chapter 8

Jack stood on an ice cliff in Antarctica, feeling more alone than he had for nearly two hundred years. He’d come here because he didn’t know where else to go; he couldn’t be around children now, not when there should be millions of them out looking for eggs and _believing_. And Aster…Aster had made it clear where he stood.

Apparently not with Jack.

Jack couldn’t blame him. He _couldn’t_ , not when he’d seen how losing Easter had destroyed him.

Not when he was right that Jack had let him down.

Jack stared at the tooth box in his hand, and he let his self-loathing wash over him. He should’ve listened to Baby Tooth. He should’ve gone straight back to the Warren, straight back _home_ when he’d gotten Sophie back safely.

Instead, he’d let Pitch play him for a fool and had managed to lose the family he did have in an attempt to rediscover a past that was over and done with.

He couldn’t stop seeing the confusion on North’s face as he asked where Jack had been when the Nightmares were smashing Aster’s eggs. He couldn’t stop hearing the grief and dawning horror in Tooth’s voice as she asked where Baby Tooth had gone. They’d both been far more disappointed than angry. He hadn’t thought it would hurt more that way.

And Aster…Jack had never seen him so broken. He’d never seen him _hopeless_ like that.

He was afraid of what that meant.

But it was easier to be angry than afraid, and easier still to direct that anger inward.

He let his anger and frustration with himself build more and more until he was winding up to throw the tooth box into the ocean, but then he stopped himself.

This box, his memories, they might be all he had left now.

And that was when Pitch found him.

“I thought this might happen,” he called out, coming up the incline toward Jack. “They never really believed in you. I was just trying to show you that. But _I_ understand.”

Pitch, who had attacked Aster, who had broken what he held most dear, who had put that look on Aster’s face when that kid had walked through him.

“You don’t understand anything,” Jack said as coldly as he could, letting his fury build again as he kept Pitch in sight. Fury was useful when it came to fighting.

Pitch seemed a little taken aback. “No? I don’t know what it’s like to be cast out? To not be believed in? To long for a family?”

No, that was too much. Jack couldn’t hold back his rage any more, not after what Pitch had done to Aster, the only family Jack had ever known. He spun abruptly to face Pitch head-on and shot a bolt of frost at him, launching himself into the air as he did.

But Pitch was fast, faster than he’d been the last time they fought. He countered everything Jack threw at him, even as Jack tried harder and harder, goaded on by the pain of the day.

And he was still. Talking.

“All those years in the shadows, I thought, no one else knows what this feels like. But now I see I was wrong. _You_ know. We don't have to be alone, Jack. We can take on the world together. Surely you see that? Surely you can see that we _belong_ together?” The last question was purred out, and Jack was coming to an unsettling conclusion about Pitch’s intentions.

“You don’t know me. You don’t know what my life has been like. You’ve taken everything from me,” Jack said, pausing as his voice threatened to break. He couldn’t show vulnerability or weakness. Not to Pitch. “If you’re aiming for…for some kind of partnership here, the answer is no. The answer will always be no. Now for the last time, leave me alone.”

He hadn’t realized how soft Pitch’s features had been until they hardened with rage as Jack turned to leave. Apparently Pitch was done being nice, if that was what passed for nice with him.

“Very well. You want to be left alone? Done. But first...”

There was a tweet. A very familiar tweet. Baby Tooth.

Before Jack knew it, he was handing over his staff for a hostage exchange that Pitch immediately double-crossed him on. And then Pitch was breaking his staff and Jack was discovering why he had always thought of his staff as an extension of himself.

He couldn’t remember ever feeling pain like this. Even when Pitch threw him into the side of a glacier and dropped him down a crevasse, nothing overpowered the pain deep in his chest, like he was being torn in two.

But it faded after a few moments; he could still feel the echo of that horrible, horrible burning and tearing, but it was easier to push it to the background. And then he saw a flash of tropical color, and the pain became entirely unimportant.

Baby Tooth was hurt and cold, and it was his fault. Aster might hate him now, and it was his fault. The Guardians were well on their way to losing, and it was his fault.

If Baby Tooth hadn’t intervened, Jack wasn’t sure how long he would have spent wallowing at the bottom of the crevasse.

But she did intervene, and she showed Jack something _wonderful_.

He’d had a family. He’d had a sister, a little sister that adored him, his Emma who he’d been devoted to since she’d been placed in his arms just after she was born.

And he’d saved her. It was _his_ actions and _his_ choice.

He _was_ a Guardian.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's Jack's interpretation of what happened last chapter! Unreliable narrators are fun.
> 
> Thank you all for reading! We're coming to the final climax soon!


	9. Chapter 9

Aster knew North and Tooth were worried about him.

He hadn’t said a word about using North’s snow globe to get back to the Pole. He could feel his power waning and for once didn’t trust his tunnels.

But it really didn’t matter, did it? Easter was ruined. Jack was gone. Pitch had won.

North was saying something about encouraging belief and finding the last believers. Aster followed silently in his wake because it was easier than trying to convince him it was pointless.

He climbed into the sleigh and settled next to Tooth. She kept looking over at him, and North was unusually grim and stony-faced as he took the reins.

“I’m so sorry, Bunny,” Tooth said softly. Aster gave a jerking nod in response, acknowledging her words.

“We will fix this,” North added, his voice for once serious and low. Aster managed a grunt.

There was a strained silence as North steered them out of the passageway and into the air. North checked the globe for the last few lights, threw open a portal and set their course.

“I am thinking,” North said when they’d emerged in England, “that you maybe know Jack Frost better than I thought.”

“Makes you say that?” Aster forced out.

“It was personal,” North answered. He still wasn’t looking back. “How you acted. What you said. What you called each other. You are close.”

“He called you Aster,” Tooth said. “And you called him Snowdrop.” She was quiet for a long moment as that statement settled between them. “You don't use pet names. Not with your friends. Or at least not with us.”

Aster closed his eyes. He was so tired of this, of lying to his friends. Why had he thought it was a good idea?

“Yeah,” he said at last, low and rough. He closed his eyes. “Yeah, we’ve…we've been together, the past few decades.” He just knew North and Tooth would be exchanging looks. He didn’t want to see it.

“You’ve never really mentioned him,” Tooth said.

“Yeah, well, when would I have,” Aster said. “None of us've been around much of late.” No one had an answer to that.

“Then I do not understand,” North said. “If you had this previous connection, why did Jack abandon you for his memories?”

That cut through the bone-deep exhaustion. “He didn't,” Aster said defensively. “He wouldn't. It was some trick of Pitch’s.”

“But then why did you tell him leave?” Tooth asked with a quizzical frown. “If he didn’t…”

“The lights,” North interrupted suddenly, “something’s happening to—”

Aster didn’t really hear the rest of what he said. His hearing, normally excellent, was fading out. He was struck with a wave of exhaustion and pain that called to mind the feeling of that child walking through him. He shuddered and curled up a bit. And then found he was curling up a bit more, and it wasn’t until he felt Tooth’s hands stroking his head that he realized he’d shrunk.

“I don’t believe this,” he muttered, stretching out and looking down at himself. He looked just like an actual Earth bunny. Same size and all.

“Bunny?” Tooth sounded shocked. North turned at that for a moment, and swore in that way he had.

“’M a shapeshifter, yeah?” Aster said. “It’ll happen involuntarily sometimes when it’s a matter of survival.”

“Survival? Oh,  _ Bunny _ …”

“The lights,” North said. “They’ve gone out. All but one.”

“So there isn’t enough belief in me to keep me going,” Aster said. “Not after  _ that _ Easter.”

He wanted Jack. There was something about facing down certain death that put things into perspective. Might be he’d been hasty in chasing Jack away the way he had. He knew his mate better than that, didn’t he? He knew Jack was stronger than that.

He blinked. Jack  _ was _ stronger than that, and Aster was an idiot.

“We need to get to the last light before it is too late,” North said grimly.

“Where?” Tooth asked.

“Burgess. In Pennsylvania.”

~*~

They only barely made it before the magic of the sleigh gave out. North and Tooth were showing their weakness now; it might’ve hit Aster first, and possibly hardest, but they were hardly unaffected.

And then—miracle of miracles—Jackie was there already.

And the boy, Jamie, one of Jack’s favorites, believed. In Jack.

And the rest of them, of course, he was the only thing keeping the three Guardians alive, but he believed in Jack. Could see him. Could answer him.

This kid might have just jumped the list to become Aster’s favorite.

He would deny to the end of his days that he’d been too embarrassed to come out of the sleigh at first, at least until Jack asked about him with a catch in his voice, his tone threaded through with growing panic.

He put on a bit of a brave front for the kid and for Jack—though he had no illusions that Jack hadn’t seen through that immediately—but he couldn’t hold back the wonder in his voice or the tenderness he gazed at his mate with when Jamie revealed Jack had reignited his belief in Aster specifically right when he was on the brink.

“He made you believe? In me?” He met Jack’s eyes. “Jackie…” he said, trailing off when he couldn’t find the words.

Tooth made a muffled sound behind her hands. Oh, that was going to be a right pain in the arse if she kept it up.

Jack managed to duck his head and peer through his lashes at Aster even when Aster was less than two feet off the ground. He knew the effect it had, that was why he did it, and Aster knew he knew, but it made him melt every time.

“Of course I did,” he said, and his voice was soft but absolutely bedrock certain. “I couldn’t have done anything else.” He bit his lip and dropped his eyes. “Even… even if you don't want--”

And Pitch, with his typical sense of timing, attacked right at that moment.

Aster frowned at Jack's cut-off sentence. Any long conversation was going to have to wait. Jack, still not tied to his believer the way the rest of them were, was the only possible choice to face Pitch. Aster knew that, but his heart felt as though it was in a vice as Jack clenched his staff in his fist.

“Be careful, Jack,” he said in lieu of anything else. “You'd better come back to me.”

Jack started at him with wide, heartbreaking eyes one last time before he leapt into the air after the Bogeyman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the others know now but are unfortunately too distracted to react properly (by which I mean give Aster shit). But they will get a chance to do that, never fear!
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	10. Chapter 10

When he looked back on it, that night would always be more a series of flashes to Jack. The moment in the alleyway when Jamie unwittingly helped him realize his center and gave him an idea on how to fight fear. A chaotic, exhilarating, joyful,  _ fun _ scramble through town to collect Jamie’s friends. The realization that they could win this, that they could trust in the kids and their belief to protect them.

Facing Pitch directly and fighting with others by his side, the Guardians returning to power as they turned the tide. Aster’s desperate shout when he was cornered that made Jack's heart jump into his throat and Sandy. Sandy, back to life. Sandy, saving them all.

Aster told him it was like that sometimes, in battle. Something about the adrenaline.

He had much clearer memories of what came after. As soon as Sandy knocked Pitch out and the immediate danger to the kids was past, Aster pulled him into a hug. Jack breathed out a sigh of relief. Aster was all or nothing; if he wanted a divorce, whatever the Pookan version of that was, he wouldn't be approaching Jack like  _ that _ .

They kept it as friendly as they could; frankly at this point Jack didn’t much care if the other Guardians knew, but he had the sense it would be weird for the kids to think of the Easter Bunny in a relationship with anyone, let alone someone of a totally different species.

He just couldn’t help the way his hands clenched in Aster’s fur. He’d come so close to losing him. He'd thought their relationship might be over. But he managed the heroic task of pulling away after just a few moments. A perfectly respectable friend-hug amount of time.

And anyway, everyone was running so high on excitement over Pitch’s defeat and the reappearance of Sandy, no one even noticed them.

“M'sorry,” Aster said softly as they parted. “I was being an overprotective idiot and I should've trusted you.”

Jack wanted badly to ask what the heck he was talking about, but they still had an audience. North for one was giving him an awfully knowing look, and the kids were probably pretty hopped up on adrenaline anyway, so Jack didn’t feel at all bad about getting a free-for-all snowball fight started. It would wear the kids out and help him avoid any awkward questions until Aster could be there to answer them. Win-win.

But when Pitch was not quite as defeated yet as they thought, they had to get back to business.

Jack felt a little, tiny, minuscule bit of sympathy at Pitch’s expression when Jamie walked through him. Only a little; the guy was literally screaming “You will fear me!” when it happened, but even so, that was a feeling Jack didn’t wish on his worst enemy. Case in point.

They watched him run off, and as the others prepared to follow, Jack called out, “I know where that path goes.”

Aster glanced over and smirked a little. “Bonza. I can make us a shortcut.”

“Burgess Pond,” Jack said, with only a slight twinge now that he knew his full history with the place. He’d always been drawn to it, though, and had three hundred years of memories of kids having fun on the pond in winter without any serious injury thanks to him.

Still, it was an appropriate place for Jack at least to face down the embodiment of fear.

Aster made a tunnel and they all hurried through, coming out in time for Pitch to run smack into them.

And in the end, it was his own Nightmares that finally took Pitch down.

Jack looked up and smiled. The sun had just come up, but the Moon was still out. And for the first time in nearly 300 years, he mostly just felt…grateful. The normal frustration and pain had just flowed away.

Tooth interrupted his reflective moment by flying over and hugging him; she pulled away, beaming, and Jack saw the other Guardians approaching over her shoulder.

“Are you ready now, Jack?” North asked. “To make it official.”

Jack paused for a moment, and looked over at Aster. His mate gave a crooked smile and a small nod.

A decision like this probably warranted an actual conversation, but, well, Jack had already made up his mind. He’d decided in Antarctica—realized, really, what he already was—but it was good, to have Aster’s blessing for this, to know they were on the same page.

He met North’s eyes with a smile.

“Good!” said North as he glanced between Jack and Aster with what was probably meant to be a sly look. Jack had the feeling his relationship with Aster really wasn’t a secret anymore. “Then it is time you took the Oath,” North continued.

The kids—his  _ believers _ , how awesome was that—arrived just as North started reading.

It was…good. Really good. It felt right, kind of the way he and Aster felt right. Like he was where he was meant to be, sort of, but only because he was in the place he had made for himself.

They all—all the Guardians, Jack was a  _ Guardian _ now—got into the sleigh and flew off, trusting the various helpers and followers to get the kids back to their homes.

Jack settled into the back of the sleigh on the bench next to Aster, though on the opposite side of the sleigh when he would rather have cuddled close. It had been a lot, the past three days. Emotionally, physically, mentally, all just…so much. Jack reminded himself that everyone was likely feeling it, and they would probably be heading home as soon as they got back to the Pole. He could curl up with Aster in their nest then, without the audience.

Speaking of, he realized they were getting quite a few quick little glances directed back their way, from Tooth and Sandy and even a couple from North as he pulled out a snow globe to hasten the journey. He looked over at Aster from the corner of his eye. He had just been thinking that their relationship was going to have to come out pretty soon, but Aster had been the one insisting they keep it secret. That sense of unease and insecurity and hurt that had been twisting in Jack’s stomach whenever he thought of that gave another jolt.

But Aster had already noticed the glances, and was looking back at the other Guardians in amusement. His ears were upright and twitching slightly the way they did when he was trying not to laugh.

And then he reached over and pulled Jack close.

Jack blinked. Okay. Okay, that was good, right? That he wasn’t freaking out? Wasn’t it good?

He  _ really _ needed to talk to Aster.

But for now he leaned against his mate and decided to just enjoy the ride.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still two chapters to go! Most of that will be actual emotional fallout now that everyone's out of crisis mode.
> 
> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it!


	11. Chapter 11

North insisted on having them all up and feeding them before he’d let them go home once they got back to the Pole. Aster was about ready to sleep, but he knew it’d be less effort in the end to go along with it rather than have a blue.

Also there’d probably be some awkward questions about him and Jack.

He hung back a touch after getting out of the lift, pleased when Jack fell into step with him. Hopefully he wasn't too far in the doghouse then.

He had to smirk a little at the suspicious and knowing looks he got from the others.

“I wound up telling them about us,” Aster muttered as they let the rest go ahead. He knew he had to get Jack up to speed quickly.

“You’re the one that wanted to hide in the first place,” Jack replied. “It’s fine with me if they know.”

Aster cringed. Jack’s tone wasn’t especially harsh, but having it stated out like that didn’t sound great. “M’sorry, Snowdrop,” he said. “Shouldn’t’ve done that.”

Jack’s cool hand slid into his and squeezed. Likely forgiven, then. More than he deserved, probably.

They’d dawdled enough. Aster reluctantly let go of Jack’s hand as they rejoined the others.

North was calling for refreshments as Sandy smiled around at them all benignly and Tooth zeroed in on Aster and Jack with a worrying amount of focus.

“So,” she said, her eyes darting between them, “Bunny says the two of you are… together.”

“Yeah,” Jack said. There was more warmth in the word than Aster had thought would fit. He felt an answering bloom of happiness in his own chest.

“And is it serious?” Tooth asked. She still sounded tentative. North and Sandy were staring openly now, watching the conversation.

“You could say that,” Jack said. He sounded like he was on the verge of laughter, that little…

Nothing for it. “We’re mated,” Aster said. Blunt, maybe, but it had the benefit of simplicity.

And he got three blank looks for his trouble.

Jack  _ very _ helpfully entwined their hands as he leaned against Aster’s arm, resting his head on Aster’s shoulder. “It's like Pookan married,” he said.

North’s mouth dropped open just a little. Tooth’s eyes widened incrementally. Sandy blinked several times.

Jack was shaking a little; Aster was about ninety percent sure it was with suppressed laughter. If he hadn’t been so unexpectedly terrified of what his friends would think, he’d be amused by their reactions too.

“ _ Oh _ ,” Tooth said, and that seemed to snap North out of it.

“ _ Married _ ? But when Manny chose him, you said—”

“I know what I said,” Aster snapped. “I wasn’t—”

“Wait, what did you say?” Jack demanded, pulling away to give him a narrow-eyed look.

“A load of bollocks,” Aster replied, turning his attention to Jack. Better in the long term to cut that tone from his mate off at the start; North could flounder for a moment. “I was just trying to come up with reasons why you shouldn’t be a Guardian. Wanted to try to head this lot off before they ran away with the idea.”

“So, what, you didn’t even stop to hear my reaction first?”

Not good. “I wasn’t—it was  _ Pitch _ ,” he said, trying to get this conversation back on course. He knew his ears were broadcasting his distress but he was too focused on what to say. “Pitch and the belief and everything you shouldn’t have to—”

He was interrupted by a high-pitched squeak from Tooth. Couldn’t bloody finish a sentence around here. “Oh, Bunny, you were worried!” she said when she realized she’d gotten both of their attention. “That’s so sweet!”

Jack’s animosity seemed to be forgotten—or at least shelved—as he met Aster’s eyes in mutual consternation at the reminder of their audience. Sandy had even made popcorn out of the dreamsand, the showboating bastard.

“How long have you been together?” North interjected.

“We’ve known each other for over two hundred years,” Jack offered. “We first got together little over a century ago.”

North was turning wide, wounded eyes on Aster. Sandy had forgotten to keep his sand popcorn-shaped, and Tooth was sort of hugging herself.

“You never told us,” North said. Righteous indignation would be better. North just sounded hurt.

“How many times have we actually seen each other in the past hundred years?” Aster asked. “Barely at all, and never in the past few decades.”

“It was casual at first,” Jack said.

“And how long has it been serious?” Tooth asked. Sheila always was the one to get to the heart of the matter.

“We’ve been mates for about sixty years,” Jack said.

Aster blinked. Sixty years it had been already?

But Jack's revelation had gotten a reaction. Sandy had symbols going over his head so fast even Aster couldn’t keep up, but he definitely got the gist from that glare. North was listing off Russian composers so explosively it actually sounded like swearing, and Tooth got right up in his face to shriek “You’ve been  _ married _ for  _ sixty years _ and you  _ never told us _ ??”

Aster grimaced and looked over at Jack. Little larrikin was leaning his weight on his staff and watching with a right shit-eating grin. Well, apparently Aster hadn’t bothered to introduce him to his friends for over half a century—more than, if you counted the time they were courting. He’d enjoyed the privacy, and in the beginning it had seemed too fragile and new to bring up to this lot, who could be…overwhelming (case in point, Tooth’s voice was starting to get to a genuinely painful pitch as she continued her harangue), but it really had been too long.

Aster had issues with relative time, but this probably was a sore spot for Jack. He shouldn’t’ve let it go on this long.

“You’re right! You’re right, I should’ve said something sooner,” Aster said as soon as Tooth paused to draw breath. Sandy dialed down the glare immediately and North closed his mouth with an audible snap. Tooth still hovered unnerving close, but she stopped talking to let him have his say. “I should’ve told you about Jack ages ago. And I should’ve brought him round.” He turned to face Jack again. His mate’s face had gone still. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I hadn’t thought about how long it had been, that’s all.” Jack’s eyes had softened just a touch. “Wasn’t fair on you. On any of you,” he continued, glancing over at the other Guardians. “I was being selfish. And I’ll do better.”

“Acceptable enough,” said North, “but does not explain why you lied.”

“Ah,” Aster said. “Well.” Jack was looking at him expectantly and the other Guardians were watching. “That was a bad move and I acted a right dag.”

“Not an explanation,” Jack sing-songed before his tone dropped to something more serious. “Really, though, I went along with it because you asked, but you never actually said why.”

“I panicked a bit,” Aster admitted. “I wanted this lot to take my objections seriously and I didn't think they would if it came out we were together.”

He was met with four incredulous stares.

“That,” North said slowly, “is stupid reason.”

“It really is,” said Tooth. Sandy was nodding with a particularly disappointed look on his face.

“Aster,” Jack said with raised eyebrows, “I love you but that really is an  _ awful _ reason. I would not have gone along with this if I knew  _ that _ was why you wanted to hide our relationship. I mean, I just figured you were ashamed and didn't want your friends to know about me.”

He said this last bit with a self-deprecating smile; possibly he meant Aster to take it as a joke. Aster, however, was staring in abject horror. He hated that the thought had even crossed Jack's mind; it had certainly never crossed his.

“Never,” he said, low and intense. “I was selfish and wanted you to myself, but I never thought you weren't good enough.”

Tooth was beaming now, and North was smiling under his whiskers. Sandy looked beatific as always.

Jack was smiling, just a little. So that was all right.

“Bunny, that is the most I have heard you talk about feelings in centuries,” North announced as he approached and gave Aster a too-hearty thump on the back. Trust him to break the tension.

They moved to the couches, Tooth chattering to a few of her fairies again as North engaged Sandy in banter and Jack moved up to Aster’s side.

“That went well, I thought,” Jack said with a cheeky grin. Aster rolled his eyes.

“Trust me. Could’ve been much worse.”

Jack laughed a little. “North wasn’t far off, though. You’ve probably had enough of talking about emotions to last you at least the rest of the decade.”

Aster frowned and shuffled closer, reaching out to hold Jack’s elbows loosely. Enough to keep him close, but not to trap him. He didn’t take well to that. “No, this is important. I didn’t realize what I was doing, that I was…keeping you to myself, but it wasn’t right. You should have other people in your life. You’re the most important thing in my life, and I don’t—”

This time he was cut off by Jack surging forward and kissing him as he threw his arms around Aster’s neck. After the barest moment of shock, Aster’s hands settled low on Jack’s hips as he pulled him close.

Then North ruined the moment by clearing his throat. Loudly.

They jerked apart. Jack turned slightly pink as frost feathered over his cheeks, and Aster’s ears dropped back. North was very conspicuously not looking at them, which Sandy was completely giving the lie to that by staring at them with the most knowing smirk Aster’d ever seen on his face.

Tooth at least still seemed genuinely distracted. Now that the worst of the drama had passed she'd gone back to liasing with her fairies.

Jack looked up at him with a sheepish smile and took his hand. “I love you, Aster,” he said, quietly and privately. And then he pulled Aster over to rejoin the others when all Aster wanted was to bundle him up and take him  _ home _ .

If Aster didn’t love him so much, his Jackie would’ve driven him starkers long since.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Aster gets off relatively easy, but everyone's going to give him shit about this for _centuries_. Also he disarmed them (and me) by being honest and vulnerable.
> 
> I dunno, sometimes the characters just have their own ideas on what to do and my plans just go out the window.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter! One more left from Jack's POV.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	12. Chapter 12

Jack sat next to Aster on one of North’s couches as Tooth organized her mini-fairies, Sandy tried to keep the elves from stealing his eggnog, and North pontificated.

He wouldn’t say he was quite cuddled up to his mate, but he was definitely aware of the press of Aster’s side against his, of the fur of Aster’s leg tickling the bare skin of his ankle, of Aster’s hand still in his.

It was nice. A relief, really. Aster’d had idiotic reasons for wanting to hide their relationship, but it hadn’t been what Jack was starting to fear, that he was ashamed. Jack could deal with his mate making poor choices when panicking under pressure; he had experience with that. He could handle Aster’s skewed sense of time and overprotectiveness. As long as he wasn’t pulling away.

But he had to keep his thoughts from getting too sappy before he did something like lean his head against Aster’s shoulder. Their friends knowing about their relationship was one thing, being lovey-dovey in front of other people was quite another.

North kept beaming at them regardless. Sandy was smiling; it was going to take a while to really get him, but he seemed pretty thrilled. And Tooth was shooting them warm, approving looks in between giving her fairies orders.

It was good to know Aster’s friends—really the only family he had left—approved.

But then Tooth seemed to reach a lull in the teeth, and she came closer.

“Jack?” she asked, making sure she had his attention. “I think it’s obvious we didn’t have the full story earlier, but I was wondering what exactly happened Easter morning? Baby Tooth wasn’t clear on the specifics.”

Jack straightened up a bit; he didn’t realize until he felt Aster squeeze back that his grip on his mate’s hand had tightened. He swallowed, and North and Sandy both leaned in closer, their expressions sobering.

He didn’t look over at Aster.

“It was Pitch,” Jack said at last. “He accessed my memories, somehow. In the baby teeth he stole. My teeth. I don’t know how. But I thought…I thought someone was calling for me. And he tricked me into his lair and sort of twisted things up and kept me there until his Nightmares had done—what they did.”

Tooth had her hands over her mouth now and her eyes were wide. North’s face had dropped; Jack had never seen him look so grave. Sandy was staring and his eyes were so kind, so empathic.

He still didn’t look over at Aster.

“I know it’s not an excuse,” Jack continued. “I c-can’t tell you all how sorry I am. Baby Tooth even tried to warn me off, but it was so real.”

And now North and Tooth and Sandy were all reaching out for him but Aster got there first. He more or less pulled Jack into his lap by their still-entwined hands to hug him. There may have been some chinning. When he eventually pulled away, it was only to press his forehead to Jack’s for a few long moments, sharing air and space and intimacy.

And then as soon as they were back to a more reasonable distance for the middle of Aster’s best friend’s living room, Tooth was hugging him, and then North, and then Sandy. Those hugs were of much shorter duration, but it was still a lot. Maybe too much. It only felt a little like Jack wanted to jump out of his skin.

To be entirely frank, it had been centuries of pretty much just Aster ever touching him, even before they had gotten together. Now he’d been hugged by four people (counting Jamie) that weren’t Aster in the past twelve hours.

Surely he was allowed to think that was a lot?

He’d been lost in his mind for too long; the looks were shifting from the sympathy and horror and apology to more active concern. Aster especially seemed kind of twitchy.

“You want to go home, Snowdrop?” he asked gently. Jack only really nodded in response, so Aster took care of their goodbyes (Tooth and North both looked like they wanted to hug him again, but they didn't. They did apologize for thinking the worst of him, which was nice. Sandy held back; he seemed to get it. Jack  _ liked _ Sandy.)

Next thing he knew they were in Aster’s tunnels, and Aster was chivying him along with a hand at the small of his back.

The warmth of Aster's hand felt good against him. He ran hotter than Jack, of course, and the difference was pronounced enough that Jack could feel it through his hoodie.

Then they were home. Aster ushered him through to the burrow, their actual living space tucked away in a corner of the rolling fields.

Jack felt exhausted and wrung out. There had been a few quiet moments in the past few days, but they had been vastly outweighed by the chaos. Aside from the lack of rest and immense amount of magic he'd been throwing around, his emotions had faced unprecedented turmoil. He still flinched from the memory of thinking Aster had rejected him. And to go from the lowest he'd ever been to finally being seen, and by Jamie of all kids, to finding out Aster did still love him, to Sandy's resurrection...it was exhausting.

So it was kind of nice to just...let Aster lead him to their nest, let him take off Jack's clothes, let him pull Jack down and then pull him close so they were entangled.

Jack smiled as Aster brushed his chin over the top of Jack's head. He could be a little possessive, but then, Jack was well aware that his bitterness over Easter preparations was rooted in possessiveness too. As long as they both kept it in check it should be fine.

"Jackie," Aster said when he was satisfied with how they were situated. Jack was pressed so close he could feel the word vibrate through Aster's chest. "I'm sorry, for what happened Easter morning.”

Jack pushed away enough to look up into Aster’s eyes. “What? What do you have to be sorry for? You didn’t do anything.”

“That’s the problem, yeah? I didn’t want you to see me like that, and I let you go off thinking that I don’t love you more than anything.”

Jack scowled. "No. You needed me and I wasn't there. I can't ever tell you how sorry I am for that. I just gave Pitch what he wanted. I walked right into his trap like an idiot."

"Jackie, no," Aster said and pulled Jack close again. He was murmuring reassurances and excuses and part of Jack warmed at the attention, but Aster was always doing this. He was always being the strong one, the supportive one, and the one time he had needed Jack to do the same, Jack had ruined things.

"I'm supposed to be your mate," Jack protested. "Your helpmeet. And instead I let you down. Whether you think so or not, that's what I did. And I'm sorry. I shouldn't have fallen for Pitch's tricks."

There was silence for a long moment, but Aster didn't push him away. Jack glanced up at his face and he looked grim and frustrated and almost defeated and Jack hated himself for a moment for putting that look on Aster’s face.

"It was a dirty trick," Aster said at last. "I don't blame you for falling for it. The memories Tooth keeps are powerful. It wouldn't even have seemed real; to you, it would've been real. And it would have dragged up feelings you couldn't have even remembered having."

“So it's Pitch's fault,” Jack said with a little smile. Aster chuckled and agreed, so the argument was averted, but Jack knew he would be learning from this. He would be a proper mate to Aster, the kind of mate he deserved.

They settled in, just enjoying being close to one another. Jack thought sometimes that if it hadn't been for the Wind he might've resented his height, or lack thereof, but he loved the way he and Aster fit together.

He was just starting to drift off when Aster spoke again.

“Do you remember,” Aster said into his hair, “when I asked you to be my mate?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I asked if you wanted to get married the human way, too.”

Okay, this was maybe worth staying awake for. “I remember,” Jack said, picking up his head a little bit so he wasn’t muffled by Aster’s fur.

“You said you didn’t want that without any family or friends. That a wedding was a celebration, something to share with the people who loved you. You thought that mating sounded more like something just for us, that it would be better to just do things the Pookan way.”

“Yeah,” Jack said. There was a lump in his throat.

“Just wondering if maybe you’d rethought that at all given the past couple days.”

Jack couldn’t help but laugh. It was a little disbelieving, a little incredulous, but mostly delighted. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

“Reckon I am.”

He had to bury his face in Aster’s fur again. He couldn’t help but hide a grin that wide. “Yeah, okay,” he said at last. “Let’s have a wedding.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end!
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed it!


End file.
